The Name Dropper Meme

It's a cloudy and drizzly Saturday -- perfect for sitting here making a list for a meme!

I thought this would be a fun meme to do. I frequently think back on famous people I have seen randomly in public, and have decided to make a list for myself as it's rather easy to forget some of them. (And I'm still going to forget some.)

If you want to play along, be my guest, but here's the rules. It has to be something random and unexpected. You can't list Madonna if you paid money to see her in concert! However, if she invited you up on stage, then yeah, you can list her. For this reason, I won't be able to list Bob Hope, Lawrence Welk, Elvis Presley, or The Cramps.

Keanu Reeves - several sightings. Riding his motorcycle in LA, and another time, talking on a pay phone outside Tower Video in West Hollywood. (My guess is that pay phone is long gone, and I wonder about Tower Video!) And at a tiny bar called, appropriately enough, Smalls.

Edgar Winter - at the same bar and same night as mentioned above. (Or was it Johnny Winter? Now I'm second guessing myself. Gimme a break! It was a bar! I was drunk!)

Andrew McCarthy - at some club in Hollywood. May have been the Rainbow on the Sunset Strip. Anyway, I was walking through the club and nearly ran head-on into him. It was about as up close, face to face, as you can get.

Forest Whitaker - shopping at a pet store in LA.

Michael Gross - he showed up at my office one day as he was about to shoot an infomercial for one of our clients. I gave him my newspaper to read while he waited.

Russell Simmons - Another work-related sighting while I was working with the production team for some Def Comedy Jam spots. We pulled in one of my employees to do the voice over work. Incidentally, his name was Montell Jordan. :-)

Ali MacGraw - at a coffee shop in Santa Monica.

Nicholas Cage - at the Erewhon natural foods market in LA shopping for something dairy, if I recall.

k.d. lang - shopping at the Erewhon in LA. She was pushing a shopping cart and coming towards me down the aisle. We had eye contact and I think she knew I was a fan. I was probably bug-eyed.

George Hamilton - also at Erewhon. txrad recognized him; I never would have.

Kevin Bacon - dancing at a gay club in Little Rock after a day of filming some movie.

Matthew Broderick - OK, this one comes close to violating the rules since I was cast as an extra in Biloxi Blues being shot near Fort Smith, Arkansas. But I had no idea we'd be the only two people in the makeup room (aside from the guys doing our makeup), so it counts!

Joan Rivers - in the Northwest Airlines lounge in Memphis while waiting on a connecting flight. She had her pooch with her, and her face was a mangled mess of raw hamburger. She had obviously just had some work done, unless that's how she travels in order to maintain a low profile! I doubt it.

Sammy Davis Jr. -- driving a Rolls Royce down a street in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles back in the 1970s when I was on vacation there with my parents. I think we were trying to find Johnny Carson's house. I was driving my dad's truck, and had stopped at a cross street and saw the Rolls pass in front of me. So all I really saw was the profile of Mr. Davis, but there's no mistaking it.

John Corbett -- seen right here in Austin eating lunch at Curra's Grill. I knew him from Sex and the City, but he's more recently been in United States of Tara.

Glenn Danzig -- this is another near-disqualification except for the fact that it meets the exception criteria like getting invited on stage which I mentioned in the rules. I was at a concert in LA in which Danzig was the opening act for another band. I was at the concert as a guest of a friend who was involved in the music business and that particular concert. At the end, I was asked to drive Danzig and his girlfriend back to his house in the Hollywood Hills since they did not have transportation for some reason.

George Clinton -- twice. And he's pretty hard to miss. Once on a Southwest flight from LA to Austin, and another time in a restroom -- probably in an airport if I recall. Apparently he flies a lot.

Gene Siskel - waiting for a flight at Chicago's O'Hare.

Cheap Trick -- they were checking into a hotel in Chicago at the same time I was.

The HMV Era

I saw so many well-known people while I spent 14 months working at the HMV record store in London that I'm devoting them to this section since the conditions under which I saw them were all identical.

Paul Weller - front man for The Jam. Not so big in the states, but in England, this was akin to seeing McCartney or Lennon.

Eric Idle - I have always thought maybe it was a dream. I know for a fact it was one of the guys from Monty Python because other employees were buzzing about the fact that he was there. But I was so completely flabbergasted, part of my brain tried to erase it. I'm 95% sure it was Eric Idle.

George Michael - he was actually checking me out while pretending to shop for something. What a slut.

Philip Oakey - singer and songwriter of The Human League. Ho-hum for most of you but I was a big fan at the time.

It's interesting that I've lived in Austin 13 years and haven't ever had any really noteworthy sightings that I recall. You'd think I would have bumped into Lance Armstrong, Sheryl Crow and/or Sandra Bullock at least once! I did have one near-miss a couple of years ago. I stopped in my neighborhood liquor store and Tommy Lee Jones had just left. Apparently he was drunk as shit and was picking up another 12-pack of some cheap beer. At least he had a driver.

In Memoriam

Yesterday was the worst day for American troops in Afghanistan in nearly a year as seven died in fighting.

Of seven United States soldiers killed Monday, said Capt. Jon Stock, an American military spokesman, four died along with two Afghan bystanders in a roadside bomb explosion in the northern Kunduz Province, and two American soldiers were killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan.

One new president, two old wars, and no end in sight. Change we can believe in.

But in an uplifting sign of concern, tens of thousands turned out in Los Angeles today to pay their respects.

How sweet and fitting.

Cher Gets a Double Whammy

Cher didn't take the news so well when Chastity told her mom she was a lesbian a few years ago. Now that "Chaz" Bono is transitioning from female to male, maybe mom will be a little more supportive than she was the first time around.

Seriously though, I'm more concerned with how the media is going to play around with this, and whether they will deal with this seriously, or turn it into a comedy strip.

I agree with Pam's opening statement:

This has to be the highest profile transition in recent memory. Let's see what the MSM does with this story as it unfolds; one can only hope that journalists will be fair and accurate and bring some rational perspective to transgender issues.

One can only hope. But I doubt it. Rational perspective would be nice for a change, on a variety of fronts. And especially when it comes to the transgender issue which rarely gets any seriously informative and educational media coverage. Unfortunately, rational perspective gets in the way of sensationalism, viewership levels and ratings, and all that shit.

We'll soon find out.

Oh, and to what kind of people does the media pander when they feel the need to sensationalize an issue? I'll give you a couple from the Daily News blog comments:





Now's there some intellectual discourse of the highest caliber! And since when did "penis" become a dirty word needing to be replaced with *****? I hope these two people are not over the age of 14. Seriously.

Please Get Me Off

I want to get off the list of people receiving these "Breaking News" emails from both MSNBC and CNN. I don't believe I subscribed to them even though the emails say they aren't sent unsolicited. That's bullshit because I get a ton of them at my new work email address as well.

However, this one was at least interesting.

The imagery in my head includes something like this...

Then some shit like this happens...

And then suddenly the universe will fit through the eye of a needle. That's not funny.

What is funny is that I've posted about androids and electric sheep in one afternoon. Maybe I need to put on the Blade Runner DVD tonight.

Paris Hilton Finally Gets My Attention

First time for everything. The bit about that "wrinkly white haired guy" cracks me up.

Five Easy Pieces of Meat

From Tart's Five Pieces of Meat, I offer my savory selections.

The rules, as laid out by Tracy, who actually tagged me originally and I just noticed. (Sorry, I don't get out as much these days due to work.)

"What five famous people would you want listed in the contract that your significant other had to forgive you if, you know, you just happened to meet them and you just happened to hit it off and they just happened to express interest in some hot, shallow monkey sex?"

Last Friday I promised to do this by Saturday afternoon. I don't believe I specified which Saturday though. (Hey, life is busy these days!)

I was wondering about one thing. To keep the playing field level, should I only select famous people who are gay, or just wing it on the off-chance that somebody I think is hot doesn't mind playing for the other team on occasion. There's a LOT of those guys out there you know!

OK, we'll go with that option. Besides, Alan Cumming really isn't my type.

1. Randy Harrison

I don't normally go for blondes. In fact I got burned by too many of 'em but I never resisted the temptation to bed down for the night when one stroked struck my fancy. If he never wandered my way, I'd even take his slut co-star in Queer as Folk:

2. Gale Harold

This rendezvous would get raunchy. That's pretty obvious. And I'm not sure I'd have the stamina for such an obvious all-nighter. But I'd give it my best shot.

3. Johnny Depp

I've had the hots from him since WAAAAYY back in the 80s. Not much has changed since then. He caught txrad's eye in 21 Jump Street and I was aware of the show at the time but not sure I ever watched it. Deep DEPP got me with A Nightmare on Elm Street and Private Resort, pretty much simultaneously. In the latter I seem to recall him sliding naked down a soap-slicked vinyl floor or something. That's exactly how konagod likes to do it.

4. Shaun White

Damn, this Olympic snowboarder is looking better and better. Imagine having sex with a guy wearing gold medals around his neck. Life could be worse. I can imagine our hair getting all tangled up during various positions and then having to cut the knots out after sex.

5. Jack White

I thought about including Rufus Wainwright and Jack Johnson. Consider them runners-up. (There are a lot of runners-up; Brad Pitt, are you listening?) But I had to get a musician in the mix here and I can't think of a finer candidate for a night of hot konasex than Jack White --- a man who has been in the presence of Loretta Lynn!

Sorry Meg, you can only watch. I might let you tape it.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Supermarket

txrad went to the store today to buy everything we needed to have veggie burgers tonight except for.... veggie burgers.

I volunteered to run get them around 7:40. I figured since I was out I might as well fetch the smallest possible bottle of tequila. I mean, George Carlin is dead. We must have a wake, right?

So I popped into my neighborhood purveyor of fine beers, wine and booze and the manager said, "You'll never guess who you just missed!"

Tommy Lee Jones had just staggered in, drunk as shit, and trying to find beer. Lucky for him, he had a sober driver. He purchased a 12-pack of Miller Lite. There goes ALL my respect for the guy.

The manager knew it was him but it was confirmed when he attempted to pay with an American Express card with his name on it. They don't take AMEX at that joint so he had to dig around for the cash.

My friend the manager suspected he'd been out at a "titty bar." He stank of "tequila and beer."

Damn. If only txrad had realized he forgot to buy veggie burgers just a few minutes earlier. I could have had a memorable celebrity sighting. But I didn't have my camera anyway.